Taiwan uses water cannon to drive off Vietnamese boat

TAIPEI: Taiwan’s coastguard said Monday that one of its vessels used water cannon this month to drive off a Vietnamese fishing boat near disputed islands in the South China Sea. Two Vietnamese fishing boats were sighted on January 6 some 2.5 nautical miles off Taiping Island, a Taiwan-administered islet in the Spratlys, the coastguard said in a statement. The Spratly Islands are also claimed in part or in whole by Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. The two Taiwanese coastguard boats, which have been deployed there since December to replace smaller vessels, scrambled to drive off the Vietnamese boats.